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Harley MS 6163

Record Id:

040-002052011

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002052011

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000899.0x000376

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 6163

Title:

An English heraldic manuscript

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. iii verso-134v: The arms of saints, emperors, kings, English nobility and gentry, beginning with the attributed arms of Prester John, the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St George, St Denis, St Edward, St Edmund, Shield of Faith, St Albans, St Thomas of Canterbury, St Peter and St Paul.

ff. 136r-141v: Unattributed coats of arms and corresponding blazons intersected with heraldic rules.

f. 142r: A full-page composite coat of arms.

The manuscript contains a few later additions:

ff. ii recto, 144r: Notes about coats of arms in the manuscript; added in the (?) 17th century.

f. iii recto: Notes on payments, added in the 16th century.

f. 143r: A list of ‘Remanentes’, including furniture, clothes and books (Priscian, Bede, Sunday sermons, a glossed Psalter, and a Bible); written in the late 15th or early 16th century.

f. 143v: Memorandi of the purchase of bread, blankets and clothes, mentioning ‘Roger Suthwerk de ffrome in comitatu Somerset’; ‘[G]alfri[dus] Boleyns de london Mercer’; ‘Wilhelmus horne de london Draper’; ‘Johannes Ruddok’; ‘Johannes Penycoke’; written in the late 15th or early 16th century.

ff. 145r-150r: An index, incomplete; added in the (?) 17th century.

Decoration:

Coats of arms in colours throughout the manuscript.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002052011", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 6163: An English heraldic manuscript" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002052011

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 6163 : An English heraldic manuscript

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[6167]/040-002052011

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1479

End Date:

1501

Date Range:

c. 1480-c. 1500

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 405 x 275 mm.

Foliation: i-iii + 150 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [ii]recto (bibliographical notes); 2 on f. 107r (coats of arms); 1 on f. [151]recto (note of foliation); ff. 145-150 are smaller leaves (310 x 185 mm) pasted onto paper guards.

Script: 16th-century script.

Binding: British Museum in-house; re-bound on 26 October 1960.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Sir William Segar (b. 1554, d. 1633), herald: owned the manuscript (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 300).

Peter Le Neve (b. 1661, d. 1729), herald and antiquary: his notes; purchased from him by Harley (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 219-221).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 464.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 219-21, 300, 334.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England